Here is a nice new book! It is mine. Papa has just given it to me, for They will call me a dunce if I do not learn to read well, so I will try my very best; for what is the use of a nice book like this, if I cannot read it? It is not of a bit more use than my wax doll would be to puss. What, Miss Puss, you hear your own name, do you? and think we are going to have a game of play. On no, puss, no such thing. It will not do for me to mind only play, for mamma says that, if I live, I shall be a woman Look, puss, here is my new book. Ah, I see you do not care for books. You like to lie on the warm rug before the fire, and there you sleep away half your time. That may do very well for a puss, but it will not do for me. If I am as idle as you, I shall grow up a dunce, and what would papa say then? No, no, pussy, you may do as you like, but for my part I am not going to be a dunce. Sometimes I sit upon mamma's knee, and she tells me the story about a Mamma says that when I can read, I shall have books that will teach me about many things which are to be seen in places a long way off, far, far over the sea. About lions and tigers, that live in the woods, and about black boys and girls, like the poor man who came to beg at the Let me look again at my new book. Papa was very kind to buy it for me, and I will take care of it, that not a leaf may be torn. But I shall lend it to Willie if he asks me, for mamma says we must be kind to each other. I will tell him to take care of it when I lend it to him. Now I will go and show it to nurse, and ask her to put on it a white paper cover to keep it clean. Good bye, pussy, I will leave you to finish your |